CAIRO: The Egyptian press last week focused on the upcoming Parliamentary and Presidential elections in the country, highlighting a top National Democratic Party (NDP) official's statements that President Hosni Mubarak will be the next NDP candidate for the presidential elections. Reports also centered on some statements by both the French and Italian Foreign ministries on international supervision of the Egyptian Parliamentary elections set for November 28. The local press also published a report by the World Bank commending the Egyptian government`s efforts in achieving economic reform, which in turn led to “growth-enhancing.” Almost all local newspapers, whether state-owned, partisan, or private, highlighted the statements of the Secretary of the National Democratic Party for Information, Ali Eddin Hilal, who gave a strong indication that Egypt's 82-year-old President Mubarak will seek another six-year term of office in elections next year, despite wide speculation that his son will succeed him. “The next president is President Hosni Mubarak,” Hilal, who is the party's spokesman, said in an interview with Alhurra television, last week. He said the “president is yet to make his final decision.” Many in Egypt believe that his son Gamal, the Secretary General of the NDP`s Policies Committee, is being groomed for succession. Hilal added that any transfer of power will be “peaceful and according to the constitution and within the framework of political and constitutional institutions,” he told Alhurra. Hilal's comments raised mixed reactions among opposition politicians, as Saad Katatni, head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Parliamentary bloc, considered it a sort of “jamming on the upcoming parliamentary elections.” Osama Ghazali Harb, the leader of the Democratic Front Party, said that the opposition was convinced that President Mubarak will remain president for life, who agreed with Abdul Galil Mustafa, General Coordinator of the National Assembly for Change. Bahaa el-Din Abu Sha`a, political advisor for the Al Wafd Party, said the comments are an “attempt to end the state of debate in the political arena about the nomination of Gamal Mubarak to succeed his father.” Egypt`s press also pointed to the statements of the French Foreign Ministry last week, which expressed the European country's wish to see transparent and fair parlimentary elections, which were followed by similar statements by the Italian Foreign Ministry. The Ambassador in charge of the affairs of human rights in the French Foreign Affairs Ministry Francois Zimeri, expressed his hope to see “a fair and transparent electoral process next November during the upcoming parliamentary elections.” The French official continued: “For us, it is clear that transparent elections say a lot about the development of the country,” and he expressed hope that the Egyptian Government responds to the voices of those who call for respecting the “principles of democracy and to see the electoral process conducted according to the international standards.” Zimeri explained that the elections are not the main reason for his visit to Cairo, and that he held talks with the authorities and representatives of non-governmental organizations on a number of issues relating to human rights and about the state of emergency and women's rights and respect for religious minorities and freedom of expression. The first round of elections is scheduled to be held on the November 28, while the second is going to be held on December 5. In a related context, the Italian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Stefania Craxi, said that her country had not made a request to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to send international observers to monitor the upcoming Egyptian elections, adding that her meeting with Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Minister of Foreign Affairs “did not include any discussion on this matter.” This came during a briefing held by the minister with a number of journalists at the residence of Italian Ambassador Claudio Pacifico. Craxi pointed out that her visit to Cairo included talks on “various projects involving the two sides in various fields, including scientific, cultural cooperation.” In a different context, the local press highlighted a report by the World Bank, which said that Egypt was “able to continue to work to achieve its agenda of economic reforms on a large scale,especially in the market, business which also includes the sectors of health, education, transport and infrastructure.” The WB said in a report on cooperation with Egypt that the Egyptian government is seeking – with financial and technical support of many partners “to improve the living conditions of the Egyptian people and loans offered by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development increased from $140 million in fiscal year 2005 to 870 million dollars in fiscal year 2009.” The bank indicated that the reforms implemented by the government contributed in making the investment climate “more readily and easily accessible, which led to a strong response from the private sector, where Egypt topped the list of countries that apply the reforms in the report “Doing Business” for 2008, and and increased the real growth of GDP from 3.5 percent in average during the financial years 2001-2004 to 7.1 percent in fiscal 2007. It noted that the sectors of construction, communications, tourism and the Suez Canal are among the fastest growing sectors, and wished to translate this growth into “employment opportunities and low unemployment rates of 10 percent on average in fiscal years 2003-2005 to 9.1 percent in fiscal 2007.” The bank said that the Egyptian government proceeded since 2004 to implement the agenda whereby the design of reforms and implementation to be able to promote economic growth, the focus was on improving the business climate in a wide range of policies relating to the reduction of barriers to trade, finance and taxation, but the report noted that in spite of the tremendous improvement in social indicators in the past decade the numbers of the poor in Egypt are still large as up to about 20 percent of the total population. BM
